Riptide

New York CityJune 15PresentBecca was watching an afternoon soap opera she’dseen off and on since she was a kid. She found herselfwondering if she would ever have a child who needed aheart transplant one month and a new kidney the next, or ahusband who wouldn’t be faithful to her for longer than ittook a new woman to look in his direction.Then the phone rang.She jumped to her feet, then stopped dead still andstared over at the phone. She heard a guy on TV whiningabout how life wasn’t fair.He didn’t know what fair was.She made no move to answer the phone. She just stoodthere and listened, watching it as it rang three more times.Then, finally, because her mother was lying in a coma inLenox Hill Hospital, because she just plain couldn’t standthe ringing ringing ringing, she watched her hand reach outand pick up the receiver.She forced her mouth to form the single word. “Hello?”“Hi, Rebecca. It’s your boyfriend. I’ve got you soscared you have to force yourself to pick up the phone.Isn’t that right?”She closed her eyes as that hated voice, low and deep,swept over her, into her, making her so afraid she wasshaking. No hint of an Atlanta drawl, no sharp New Yorkvowels, no dropped R’s from Boston. A voice that was welleducated, with smooth, clear diction, perhaps even a touchof the Brit in it. Old? Young? She didn’t know, couldn’ttell. She had to keep it together. She had to listen carefully,to remember how he spoke, what he said. You can do it.Keep it together. Make him talk, make him say something,you never know what will pop out. That was what the policepsychologist in Albany had told her to do when theman had first started calling her. Listen carefully. Don’t lethim scare you. Take control. You guide him, not the otherway around. Becca licked her lips, chapped from the hot,dry air in Manhattan that week, an anomaly, the weatherforecaster had said. And so Becca repeated her litany ofquestions, trying to keep her voice calm, cool, in charge,yes, that was her. “Won’t you tell me who you are? I reallywant to know. Maybe we can talk about why you keep callingme. Can we do that?”“Can’t you come up with some new questions, Rebecca?After all, I’ve called you a good dozen times now.And you always say the same things. Ah, they’re from ashrink, aren’t they? They told you to ask those questions,to try to distract me, to get me to spill my guts to you.Sorry, it won’t work.”She’d never really thought it would work, thatstratagem. No, this guy knew what he was doing, and heknew how to do it. She wanted to plead with him to leaveher alone, but she didn’t. Instead, she snapped. She simplylost it, the long-buried anger cutting through her bonegrindingfear. She gripped the phone, knuckles white, andyelled, “Listen to me, you little prick. Stop saying you’remy boyfriend. You’re nothing but a sick jerk. Now, howabout this for a question? Why don’t you go to hell whereyou belong? Why don’t you go kill yourself, you’re surenot worth anything to the human race. Don’t call me anymore,you pathetic bastard. The cops are on to you. Thephone is tapped, do you hear me? They’re going to get youand fry you.”She’d caught him off guard, she knew it, and anadrenaline rush sent her sky-high, but only for a moment.After a slight pause, he recovered. In a calm, reasonablevoice, he said, “Now, Rebecca sweetheart, you know aswell as I do that the cops now don’t believe you’re beingstalked, that some weird guy is calling you at all hours, tryingto scare you. You had the phone tap put in yourself becauseyou couldn’t get them to do it. And I’ll never talklong enough for that old, low-tech equipment of yours toget a trace. Oh yes, Rebecca, because you insulted me,you’ll have to pay for it, big-time.”She slammed down the receiver. She held it there, hard,as if trying to stanch the bleeding of a wound, as if holdingit down would keep him from dialing her again, keephim away from her. Slowly, finally, she backed away fromthe phone. She heard a wife on the TV soap plead with herhusband not to leave her for her younger sister. Shewalked out onto her small balcony and looked over CentralPark, then turned a bit to the right to look at theMetropolitan Museum. Hordes of people, most in shorts,most of them tourists, sat on the steps, reading, laughing,talking, eating hot dogs from the vendor Teodolpho, someof them probably smoking dope, picking pockets, andthere were two cops on horseback nearby, their horses’heads pumping up and down, nervous for some reason.The sun blazed down. It was only mid-June, yet the unseasonableheat wave continued unabated. Inside the apartmentit was twenty-five degrees cooler. Too cold, at leastfor her, but she couldn’t get the thermostat to move eitherup or down.The phone rang again. She heard it clearly through thehalf-closed glass door.She jerked around and nearly fell over the railing. Notthat it was unexpected. No, never that, it was just so incongruousset against the normalcy of the scene outside.She forced herself to look back into her mother’s lovelypastel living room, to the glass table beside the sofa, at thewhite phone that sat atop that table, ringing, ringing.She let it ring six more times. Then she knew she had toanswer it. It might be about her mother, her very sickmother, who might be dying. But of course she knew it washim. It didn’t matter. Did he know why she even had thephone turned on in the first place? He seemed to knoweverything else, but he hadn’t said anything about hermother. She knew she had no choice at all. She picked it upon the tenth ring.“Rebecca, I want you to go out onto your balcony again.Look to where those cops are sitting on their horses. Do itnow, Rebecca.”She laid down the receiver and walked back out ontothe balcony, leaving the glass door open behind her. Shelooked down at the cops. She kept looking. She knewsomething horrible was going to happen, she just knew it,and there was nothing she could do about it but watchand wait. She waited for three minutes. Just when shewas beginning to convince herself that the man was tryingnew and different ways to terrorize her, there was aloud explosion.She watched both horses rear up wildly. One of the copswent flying. He landed in a bush as thick smoke billowedup, obscuring the scene.When the smoke cleared a bit, she saw an old bag ladylying on the sidewalk, her market cart in twisted piecesbeside her, her few belongings strewn around her. Piecesof paper fluttered down to the sidewalk, now rutted withdeep pockmarks. A large bottle of ginger ale was broken,liquid flowing over the old woman’s sneakers. Timeseemed to have stopped, then suddenly there was chaos aseveryone in view exploded into action. Some peoplewho’d been loitering on the steps of the museum rantoward the old lady.The cops got there first; the one who’d been thrownfrom his horse was limping as he ran. They were yelling,waving their arms—at the carnage or the onrushingpeople, Becca didn’t know. She saw the horses throwingtheir heads from side to side, their eyes rolling at thesmoke, the smell of the explosive. Becca stood therefrozen, watching. The old woman didn’t move.Becca knew she was dead. Her stalker had detonated abomb and killed that poor old woman. Why? Just to terrorizeher more? She was already so terrified she could hardlyfunction. What did he want now? She’d left Albany, left thegovernor’s staff with no warning, had not even called tocheck in.She walked slowly back inside the living room, firmlyclosing the glass door behind her. She looked at the phone,heard him saying her name, over and over. Rebecca, Rebecca.Very slowly, she hung up. She fell to her knees andjerked the connector out of the wall jack. The phone in thebedroom rang, and kept ringing.She pressed herself close to the wall, her palmsslammed against her ears. She had to do something. Shehad to talk to the cops. Again. Surely now that someonewas dead, they would believe that some maniac was terrorizingher, stalking her, murdering someone to show her hemeant business.This time they had to believe her.